


We Are Marked Together

by silbecoo



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 06:25:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14349783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silbecoo/pseuds/silbecoo
Summary: Frank stays away, lives his life away from her, hopes she's better off without him, until he can't... (post TPS1 reunion)





	We Are Marked Together

He sees them one day when he’s walking Max. It’s dusk, and the setting sun casts the whole city in a fiery shade of orange. They’re holding hands, leaning into one another. They seem content, happy even. The girl’s curly hair catches the golden rays of the light and it glows like a halo around her head. The boy draws their clasped hands to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to the girl’s knuckles. Her smile broadens, an obvious flush warming the apples of her cheeks.

  
Frank is surprised. This idyllic scene fights against the image of them he has locked in his brain. When he blinks he sees them at the carousel, bloody and trembling, weak from blood loss, forever traumatized, frozen in time. A tinkling laugh jerks him back to the present. The girl is tugging at the boy’s hand, pulling him along behind her, eager to get where they’re going.

  
Frank watches them walk away as the sun finishes its journey below the horizon, they eventually disappear around a corner. Street lamps flicker on, their distinct buzzing filling the air. Max tugs impatiently at his leash, wondering why Frank has stopped so suddenly.

  
For some reason it’s hard to breath, his throat and chest tight with something he can’t name. He flexes his grip on the leash, glancing down at his hand. For a second he expects to see blood and swollen joints, but instead it’s just his old battered knuckles, little white slashes of scar tissue almost faded, his surprisingly long graceful fingers curled into his palm.

  
It’s the same feeling when he wakes up in the morning and looks into his bathroom mirror. He doesn’t recognize the man staring back at him, the man with clear eyes and unmarked skin. He expects someone different. When did the bruises fade? When did the cuts heal? When did his hair got fluffy and his beard unkempt? All that’s left of the man he knows are the scars, silvering and fading with time.

  
His mind darts back to the young couple again, at the way their fingers looped so easily, the scars on their wrists pressed firmly together, as though the marks don’t burn with the memory of a madman trying to kill them, as though it’s a comfort to touch someone who knows…

  
Suddenly he realizes what the hollow feeling in his chest is, the yearning. Karen was right. He’s lonely as fuck, walking through his days like a ghost. Frank Castle is a dead man, that much is true. The thought pulls his last memory of her up from the depths of his soul where he’d been trying to hide it. She looks devastated, eyes full of unshed tears, a nasty gash in her forehead bleeding more than it should, her thumping heart aiding its progress.

  
She’s frozen in time too. The image of her on their last encounter supersedes every other memory, wounded and upset and trying so desperately to tell him with looks alone that she cares about him. He tries so hard sometimes to remember the way she looked before, the way her hair slipped over her shoulder when she reached down into her bag looking for change, the way her eyes got soft looking up at him from her couch, but he can’t hold on to those images. It’s that soul crushing look of goodbye that comes and pushes them all away.  
He wonders if she’s all healed up, if there’s a scar where he last saw that alarming red sweeping across her pale skin. He can’t imagine it. He can’t imagine her happy, can’t imagine her without that misguided ache in her heart when she looks at him. But… he also couldn’t imagine the teens from the park ever being happy again. They should have drifted apart, should have unfairly blamed each other for the painful memories.

  
Max looks up at him questioningly when their familiar path home changes. The dog has clear gray eyes that make Frank uncomfortable sometimes. It’s like Max can see his soul, all the dark ragged pieces floating around inside of him. His gaze makes Frank feel sheepish now. Vulnerability hangs between them, as though the dog knows what Frank’s motive is. “Come on man, don’t give me that fucking look.”

  
Max shrugs, as much as a dog can, taking no umbrage at Frank’s tone, trusting in his companion’s sudden desire to walk an extra five blocks away from their usual subway station.

  
It’s getting cold by the time her building is in sight, but Frank doesn’t feel it through his light jacket. He feels nervous, which is odd for him, but he chalks it up to the notion that Karen is most certainly going to be mad at him for staying away so long.

  
There are no flowers in her window. He feels stupid for looking, feels pathetic when his heart sinks. Frank Castle is a dead man and dead men don’t get secret messages from achingly beautiful women with sad eyes. Maybe being lonely isn’t so bad, hope and disappointment can be so much fucking harder.

  
He turns to leave, but Max suddenly jerks at his leash. Frank is caught off guard, and the thing slips from his hand. He curses, running after the stubborn dog, but Max is around the side of the building in a flash.

  
Frank’s heavy work boots aren’t made for running, but he leans forward trying to catch up with the idiot dog. Stray pit-bulls aren’t treated well in the city and he doesn’t want a reason to knock heads, not tonight. He skids around the corner, trying to catch his breath.

  
He fails.

  
She’s sitting on the stoop, shoulders slumped, head down as she digs through the handbag in her lap. Max sits patiently next to her, a stupid grin on his face, tongue lolling as he pants. Karen absentmindedly gives him a stroke between frustrated attempts to find something in her bag.

  
There’s something off about her movements. She’s languid, like her arms are heavy and her neck is wobbly. Frank’s concern kickstarts whatever stalled inside of him when he first saw her, and he moves closer. “Karen?”

  
Her head snaps up, and he sees her wet lashes and streaked cheeks. His heart stops with worry, eyes instinctively scanning her body for injuries.

  
Max bounds down the steps to greet him before settling back at Karen’s feet. She’s staring at him in open-mouthed shock, like she’s seeing a ghost. “F-frank?”

  
She says his name hoarsely, like she’s forgotten how to form the sounds, or maybe she’s just been yelling a lot recently. With the way she looks, it’s a definitely possibility. Tears and anger are always tangled together for her.

  
Part of him thinks he should just gather up Max and leave her sitting on the steps. He can’t do this, can’t admit he’s lonely, can’t expect her to remedy that. _He can’t._

  
And yet… he’s sitting beside her now, his movements seemingly out of his control. His fingers find their way beneath her chin, tipping her face up to his. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

  
Her eyes widen, indignation flaring to life in them. “What happened to me? No, what happened to _you_ , Frank?”

  
Tears, fat angry tears, slide down her cheeks. Her voice is full of indignation but a different part of her brain must be controlling her movements because suddenly she’s touching him back. The pads of her thumbs sweep underneath his eyes where there always used to be bruises. When did they become these people, Frank wonders, people who touch so freely, people who need to feel one another?

  
The memory of the elevator comes sailing back into his mind, her warm skin against his forehead, the absurd desire to just lie down right there and let her curl around him. The gut wrenching pain when he pulled himself through the elevator roof. 

  
_Oh._

  
Suddenly it’s hard to breathe again.

  
She delves into his hair and finds the scar where Billy grazed him, at the same time his eyes flicker to the last place he saw her injured. There’s a fading mark just beneath her hairline, and his fingers itch to touch it. Instead he asks again, “Are you hurt?”

  
She shakes her head, hands still on him, an embarrassed smile spreading across her face. “No, just wine-drunk and frustrated, and now a little mad.”

  
She jingles her keys at him, a sloppy grin starting to pull at one corner of her mouth. “Somewhere, in this god-awful, piss-smelling, worthless city, my apartment key fell off my keychain.”

  
“I’m sorry.” The apology is out of his mouth before he has time to think about it, the weight on his chest insisting that he say something. It sounds like he’s apologizing for her lost key, for the shitty way New York can be sometimes, but her glistening eyes tell him she knows the truth behind the words.

  
“I’m still mad.”

  
He nods, nothing to argue with there.

  
She can’t help but go on. “I thought - I thought –” She swallows, trying to regain her composure, but big crystalline tears start to pool in her eyes. “God, I shouldn’t have had that fourth glass of Cabernet, I’m blubbering.” 

  
The statement is followed by a soft laugh. It calms Frank’s nerves. “Karen. I-”

  
She shakes her head, begging him to let her speak before she loses it again. “Frank, I thought you were avoiding me, and then I thought maybe you were dead, and then I couldn’t figure out which one felt worse, which made me feel like a real asshole.”

  
“Karen-”

  
“And I am, Frank, a _real_ asshole. You _should_ avoid me. I’m too much of a mess to be any help to anyone.” She laughs bitterly. “Do you know why I’m so plastered after four measly glasses of wine? Because I don’t drink, ever. People with shitty secrets and dark pasts don’t get to let loose.”

  
He doesn’t know what to say to that, besides, “You’re not an asshole.”

  
She’s right about the way they both have to stay alert, but oh so wrong about not being any good for him, but he can’t articulate all the ways in which having her beside him would help. Instead he reaches for her bag, pulling it over into his lap and clumsily diving into the accoutrements of her daily life. Before long there’s a pile of hair ties, folded up pieces of paper, half used chapsticks, a hairbrush and makeup bag laying on the steps beside them.

  
His fingers trace along the silky bottom of the bag until he catches a hole in the lining’s seam. Following a hunch, he feels around until something cold and metal brushes against his skin. He withdraws the key, and without saying a word dumps everything back into her purse. He offers her a hand, palm up, scars glinting in the light of the streetlamps. “Come on, Page.”

  
Something inside of her releases, the tension unwinding until her limbs are unfolded and she’s standing, or rather leaning, against Frank. She swallows, almost afraid to ask the question that keeps circling in her head. She takes a deep breath. “So… what are we now, Frank?”

  
He turns, slipping the key into the hole, the satisfying click of tumblers moving into place. He has no good answer for her. He’s damaged beyond repair, and she’s worth so much more than he has to give her, but… “We’re us.”

  
“We’re us.” The words mean nothing and everything at the same time, and she’s okay with that.

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